Kaja Kallas
Yesterday, the general elections in Estonia became a big victory for Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and a big defeat for Vladimir Putin. Nine political parties were running candidates for Estonia's unicameral parliament--known as the Riigikogu. Kallas' center-right Reform Party took 31.4 percent of the vote, with the far-right EKRE party a distant second with 16.1 percent, and the Center Party 15 percent. It appears that the Reform Party will take 37 seats in the parliament, so that Kallas will need only 14 more seats in a coalition to control the 101-seat body and continue as Prime Minister.
The EKRE party is a right-wing populist party in the style of Trump--Euroskeptic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, and determined to "put Estonians first" rather than Ukrainians. When the Reform Party took the lead in the election, the head of the EKRE Party (Martin Helme) claimed that the election had been stolen.
This is a defeat for Putin because he has hoped that the support for Ukraine from the NATO countries would start to weaken as voters become frustrated by the economic costs of backing Ukraine in the war. Under the leadership of Kallas, Estonia has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine among all the NATO nations. Estonia has given the equivalent of 1 percent of its entire Gross National Product in military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, which includes 44 percent of Estonia's military budget. Estonia is one of only seven countries out of the 30 NATO members that meets a military spending target of 2 percent of Gross National Product; and Kallas has pledged to increase this to 3 percent. Some of her political opponents have criticized her for this military spending and for giving too much to the support of Ukraine.
The Estonians have a good reason to be afraid of Russian aggression because Estonia is one of only four NATO countries that share a border with Russia, which includes Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
I have previously written about Estonia as ranking near the top of the Human Freedom Index and as being the best model for Ukraine to emulate. Estonia and Ukraine have similar histories as having been under the rule of the Soviet Union until declaring independence in 1991. But Estonia has been more successful than Ukraine in becoming a free society that follows the principles of classical liberalism.
In the Human Freedom Index 2021 (based on data for 2019), Estonia ranked fourth in the top five freest countries out of 165 countries:
1. Switzerland
2. New Zealand
3. Denmark
4. Estonia
5. Ireland
Ukraine ranked at 98th, while Russia ranked at 126th, and China at 150th. At the bottom were Venezuela at 164th and Syria at 165th.
In the recently released Human Freedom Index 2022 (based on data for 2020), Estonia has moved up to third place, with Denmark at fourth place. Switzerland and New Zealand are still first and second respectively. Ukraine has moved up to 89th, while Russia has moved up only slightly to 119th. Venezuela and Syria are still at the bottom.
As I have previously argued, this Human Freedom Index allows us to judge the empirical evidence for the success of liberalism, because we can see that the liberal regimes tend to be high in both freedom and happiness, while the illiberal regimes tend to be low. Most human beings would rather live in free societies like Switzerland, New Zealand, and Estonia than in oppressive societies like Russia, Venezuela, and Syria.
The recent critics of liberalism--like Patrick Deneen and Rod Dreher--who speak confidently about "how liberalism failed" are silent about this empirical evidence for the success of liberalism.
By contrast, many of the people of Ukraine have been persuaded by this empirical evidence, so that they're willing to risk their lives in war in the hope that Ukraine can become more like Estonia than Russia.
1. This article reports what is, to me, good news. A victory for decent civilization!
ReplyDelete2. One line from this article stood out to me: "Most human beings would rather live in free societies like Switzerland, New Zealand, and Estonia than in oppressive societies like Russia, Venezuela, and Syria."
3. I certainly would like to live in countries like Switzerland, New Zealand, and Estonia.
4. But I wonder if most Americans agree. The last two presidential elections were pretty close. A lot of Americans seem to long for governance, economics, and social/culture practices that are like those in Russia, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia.
5. Hillary Clinton used the term "deplorables" to describe some of the Trump voters.
6. I look around me, and I'd estimate that about half of my fellow Americans are deplorables (as defined by Hillary Clinton).
7. I think there was a hope and a dream that mandatory progressive public K-12 education would produce a population of non-deplorables (i.e., believers in liberty, civil rights, the rule of law, fair play, the Constitution, etc.). But I'd say that experiment largely failed.
8. I think many people in the Liberal camp (both Classical Liberals and Progressive Liberals) imagine that the deplorables will gradually fade away and become a tiny, insignificant minority on par with the Amish.
9. But I think (to paraphrase Jesus) we will always have the deplorables with us. And I think they will always be a significant and powerful force in politics (particularly when mobilized by skillful, conscience-less rabble rousers like Donald Trump).
10. No matter what visions of a better world may be held and promoted by Classical Liberals or by Progressive Liberals, the vast contingent of deplorables and their rabble rouser leaders will always be there to muck things up. At least in America. A least I think so.
11. I do support efforts to conserve and improve human civilization.
12. But I think we must be realistic (i.e., pretty pessimistic) about the bell curve of human nature. There are some marvelous people, and then there are the deplorables, and both the marvelous and the deplorable get to vote, get to start and run businesses, and get to run for and hold public office.
13. In this regard, I think the Darwin of THE ORIGIN (who I see as pretty pessimistic about the moral nature of all biological beings) is more helpful than the Darwin of THE DESCENT (who I see as drifting somewhat into utopian aristocratic thinking in the tradition of Aristotle). I readily admit this this idea of Two Darwins, one a pessimistic, melancholic scientist, and another a hopeful, sanguine philosopher, is just an impression of mine, one that I’d like to investigate sometime.